Every year during Ramadan my schedule flips. I am fasting from sunrise to sunset, which in Dubai during late March means roughly 13 hours. No food, no water, no coffee.
The first few days are an adjustment. By the end of the first week something interesting happens: my focus in the late afternoon sharpens instead of dulling. The hours before iftar, when I have been fasting the longest, often produce my best work of the day.
This does not make immediate sense. You would expect cognitive performance to decline with blood sugar. It does not, or at least not the way you expect.
What I think is happening
Hunger removes the option of comfort-seeking. You cannot snack through a difficult problem. You cannot get up and make coffee to delay starting. The usual set of small escapes are unavailable, so you just work.
There is also something about knowing the end point. Iftar is coming at a specific time. The deadline is hard. That constraint creates focus in a way that open-ended time does not.
The lesson beyond Ramadan
I have tried to replicate this outside of Ramadan. The two things that seem to carry over:
Defined end points. I set a hard stop for deep work blocks. Not "work until I am done" but "work until 5pm." The deadline creates the same sharpening effect.
Reducing escape routes. Phone in another room. Single browser tab. Nothing open that I do not need. When the comfortable options are not available, the uncomfortable option (actually doing the work) becomes the path of least resistance.
Neither of these is a new idea. But understanding why they work — the mechanism, not just the tip — makes them stick better.
Ramadan is also not just about productivity
I should say clearly that reducing Ramadan to a productivity hack misses most of what it is. The spiritual dimension, the community dimension, the reset it provides — these matter more.
But the observation about focus is real and worth sharing regardless.